


Nothing Like the Real Thing

by SyllableFromSound



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Identity Reveal, Interrupted Kiss, Kissing, Secret Identity, Suggestive Themes, Touching, god what the hell do i even tag this, i wrote Lesbians Wordlessly Touching as a form of self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 03:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17973869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyllableFromSound/pseuds/SyllableFromSound
Summary: "Sloane's eyes had started to drift down to the Ram's toned arms, where freckles dusted the skin like snowflakes that had yet to melt. She caught herself trying to trace their pattern, trying to memorize the exact curvature of the muscles, and viciously chastised herself. That would only lead to self-torment. She had tried, in the past, to scan crowds for the Ram, searching for halflings with the same stout body type and slightly springy gait. But she had never found any quite like her, and there was no point anyway. The Ram had insisted on the utmost discretion from the very beginning. That had been just fine by Sloane. It was strictly business. They would not acknowledge each other outside of the track and the garage. Personal lives were to be discussed in only the vaguest of terms. And no taking off the masks."They both slip up. (T for lots of suggestive talk and touching but I didn't feel like writing actual sex.)





	Nothing Like the Real Thing

"It's like sex. You do it often enough and eventually the thrill wears off."

"Pfft." The noise might have been derisive or might have been amused or both. It was hard to tell, muffled as it was under layers of polystyrene and fiberglass. "I seriously doubt it. Just because you're above it all doesn't mean I have to be."

Sloane shrugged and did not respond immediately. The late sun's rays splintered into spikes as they hit the edge of the steel garage door. They pricked the corners of her vision and made her eyes sting until they watered. She turned away from it to look at the small woman whose head rested in her lap. Her raven mask created blind spots at the edges of her vision, a black frame encircling the world, so that she could not see all of the halfling at once. Not that she would've gotten a good look regardless. The Ram still wore the bone-white visage of her namesake over her face. Horns curved backwards from the top of the glaring skull to curl around her slightly pointed ears.

This level of contact would not have been feasible months ago, when they had only just begun to race together. In the beginning, Sloane had tensed even at the accidental brush of their greasy knuckles as the Ram passed her a wrench. But she had been forced to get used to it. There had been enough of holding ice packs against one another's bruises and burns, enough all-nighters working on the wagon when they fell asleep slumped against each other, enough celebratory embraces after they had flown over the finish line both smelling of blood and dust. Touching between the two of them was, by now, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing especially meaningful.

At least, Sloane told herself that. She could even believe it up until the moment when they actually made contact. Somehow, she always forgot just how it set her off tingling whenever they touched. It caught her off-guard every time.

"I'm just saying," Sloane went on, "I've been doing this longer than you. Winning races is always great and everything, but the adrenaline rush isn't always there after awhile. You won't always have the novelty of it. You know someone's really accomplished when they just take winning in stride because they've gotten so used to it. Like me."

"Wow. You're so cool."

"Why thank you!" Sloane answered brightly, blatantly ignoring the sarcasm.

The Ram giggled and then shook her head. "Anyway, I don't believe it," she said softly. "I don't think it'll happen for me at least. You can never quite remember just what it's like until you're there in the thick of it, you know? The way the wind feels in your hair and the way the cheering drowns out everything else. You just can't replicate it, I don't think."

Maybe, for the Ram, that would indeed be true. She was hungry for life, in a way that Sloane had seldom seen in other people. Open to it, not in the sense that she passively accepted whatever was thrown at her, but that she threw herself into the thick of things simply for the experience and for the knowing. It was not the nihilism that others displayed on the track. The Ram didn't drive like today was her last, but rather like she was trying to prove herself immortal. Her racing moniker--although not befitting the unified goth corvid aesthetic that Sloane had so carefully cultivated--was well chosen. She didn't race against their competitors. She charged toward the western sun and tried to outpace it so that it would never set on her. The other racers were just in her way.

Sloane's eyes had started to drift down to the Ram's toned arms, where freckles dusted the skin like snowflakes that had yet to melt. She caught herself trying to trace their pattern, trying to memorize the exact curvature of the muscles, and viciously chastised herself. That would only lead to self-torment. She had tried, in the past, to scan crowds for the Ram, searching for halflings with the same stout body type and slightly springy gait. But she had never found any quite like her, and there was no point anyway,. The Ram had insisted on the utmost discretion from the very beginning. That had been just fine by Sloane. It was strictly business. They would not acknowledge each other outside of the track and the garage. Personal lives were to be discussed in only the vaguest of terms. And no taking off the masks.

"And hey," said the Ram, "your experiences are not universal. Maybe you've just been having bad sex."

"Hey, fuck you!" Sloane shot back, hoping she could hear the smile in her voice. "I'll have you know I have fantastic sex on a very regular basis."

"Right. That's why you're in here with me almost every night working on the wagon."

Sloane snorted. "Well, there's the pot calling the kettle black. If I'm not getting any, you're not either, are you?"

"We've both been busy, I guess," she murmured, drumming her fingers lightly against Sloane's thigh. Her flesh felt almost unbearably sensitive, all of a sudden, almost ticklish.

"Yeah." Sloane swallowed. "Yeah, we have. Too many nights with just the two of us, huh?"

For a second, she regretted saying it, as the Ram turned away from the sunset outside to look up at her. But then, she answered, "It's just...I always find I'd rather spend all my time in this garage." Sloane may or may not have imagined the note of wistfulness in her voice. She wished to the gods she could have made out her expression.

"I know what you mean."

"What happened to all that fantastic sex you keep having?"

"I lied, Ram. I'm a criminal. We do that."

"Guess so," she murmured. The Ram's chest expanded as she inhaled and seemed to just keep inhaling. She held the breath for a long time, as though waiting for some sort of cue to release. For her own part, Sloane's muscles were knotting by the second as she waited in the hot silence.

"Raven," the Ram breathed at last.

"Yeah, Lamb Chop?"

She snickered, and for an instant the tension ebbed. "I've told you that's the dumbest fucking nickname possible."

"I think it's fun." Sloane hoped her nervousness did not leak through her teeth. "You know, like the little sheep puppet? You ever see that thing? Everyone loves--"

"Can I kiss you?"

The words came out fast and sudden and struck her between the eyes hard enough to daze her. She had to take several moments to process their meaning, then several moments longer to try to convince herself that she had simply misheard. But no. The Ram was sitting up, now, and turned toward her, fixed on her.

Sloane stared, and considered it lucky that her face was covered, because she undoubtedly would have looked like an idiot. otherwise. After a time, she was able to pick up her jaw and use it for speech. "Uh. No?" She shook her head quickly. "I mean, it's not that--we can't, you know? That was your rule, the thing about the masks."

There was a slight strain to the Ram's voice as she murmured, "No one kisses with their eyes open anyway. We could just close our eyes while we had the masks off. There's no catch here, I swear on whatever god you like, there isn't. Just this once, just for a second, I...I just want to know what it'd be like." Sloane heard her voice deflate into something quiet and unsure as she reached the end of the last sentence. That hardly ever happened, high and bold and buoyant as it was. She turned away. "But you don't want to. Fuck, I can't believe how stupid this is. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have even...if you don't want to, I--"

"Wait, no, I..." Sloane thought about it. Or, rather, she tried to. Thoughts coursed around her skull too quickly for her to get a grip on them, so quickly that they blurred, until they were formless and incoherent and little more than streaks of color, of emotion. All she could do was feel, and all she could feel was want. It was, in fact, a stupid thing to do. Idiotic, first to expose herself and then to kiss someone whom she had never really seen before. A completely pointless risk. And nothing, nothing, not the diamond necklaces tucked away in the aristocrats' safes nor the finish line near the cliff had ever tempted her more. Nothing had ever seemed more worth it.

Her heartbeat was powerful enough to make her whole body quiver with it as grabbed the beak of her mask. "On three?" And the Ram nodded.

At first, she squeezed her eyes shut hard enough to make colors spark out of the darkness. She screwed them shut against her temptation to look, just once. For a moment, she sat unmoving and waited for anything, any sound of movement or any sudden touch coming from out of the dark. But none came. All she heard was breathing, her own and another's, one shallow and one steady. She had not noticed the sounds before.

Finally, she whispered, "Are you...do you want me to start?"

"If you're alright with that. If you're ready."

"Yeah."

The bench on which they sat creaked as Sloane pulled herself forward on it. That brought her close enough to sense soft, cool breaths whispering faintly along her skin. A sudden shiver jolted through her. She felt cold, and electrified. Every inch of her seemed to reach out for contact, every one of the fine hairs that stood up on her arm and the tiny raised bumps that now peppered her flesh. The rhythm of the Ram's breathing was not so steady now. It quickened and hitched as she moved nearer.

Carefully, she moved her hand forward, not so much to touch as to orient herself in her blindness. She searched for a center that she could cling to, when before she had been moving directionless through the black. She found it as her fingertips brushed the spot just above the Ram's breast. When she lay her palm flat against the expanse of her broad chest, her fingers curved over the hard rod of her collarbone. She could fit her thumb into the divot behind it and feel the velvet-soft skin there.

Up over the thick shoulder, rounded with muscle. This was the part that Sloane knew well, the soft strength of her arms. She paused just as her hand began to travel upwards, following the upward turn of the side of the neck. Perhaps she would have been too nervous to go on had it not been for the hand that she felt slip underneath her arm and wrap around her waist, tugging her nearer, just a little. Small fingers lightly gripped the fabric on the back of Sloane's shirt. Her blood ran hot. She traced the neck with two fingers. Sloane could tell that the Ram tilted her head upward to expose it fully, as the muscles shifted beneath her and she felt every hard ring of the throat as she traveled up and up, then around the chin until she reached the fragile, full lower lip, which gave so easily when she pressed a little bit into it.

The Ram's mouth was slightly open. She knew by the periodic rush of warm air over her knuckles. She pulled her fingers away. It would have been easy to meld their bodies together right then, but it was not the time just yet.

Instead, her palm settled on a strikingly warm, soft cheek. The Ram seemed to lean into it, like a cat. Behind her ear, amidst the fuzz of her shaved head, Sloane's fingers ran over ridges, rough and uneven. Scars, previously unknown to her, interrupted the topography of the halfling's head. Some were so wide that she could nearly stick her finger into the gap where the flesh had been excised. Were they all racing injuries? She doubted it. She went over and over them, trying to read them like Braille, like a map in three dimensions. As though her touch could have coaxed out the stories buried beneath the layers of hardened flesh, the memories deep in the skull. She wanted to know who she was, this woman whom she felt she could simply fall into. There was so little she knew, even now.

A moment of doubt unsteadied her. Furrowing her brow, she ran her thumb over the Ram's cheekbone, then, after a moment's wondering, moved up to brush, as lightly as possible, over the eye. She made contact with the delicate closed eyelid. The Ram chuckled, and it sounded the way a steaming cup of coffee felt. "You don't trust me?" she asked gently. "I'm not going to peek." She took Sloane's hand and placed it, carefully, over her own forehead. Sloane could feel the featheriness of the Ram's eyelashes and the slight movement of her eyes against her palm. Everything about her was hot and real and so, so close but not close enough.

It was impossible to say who kissed first. When she went to seize the Ram's lips, she could already feel her pushing against her, ready to take Sloane in. They settled into a cycle of give-and-take, with Sloane moving in further and further towards her until she finally pushed back, smoothly overtook and enveloped her like an oncoming wave, making Sloane lean back. But more than anything else she sensed the Ram's fist entangled in her hair, gripping it close to the roots. Occasionally she would tighten her hold and place a type of tension on the scalp that was not quite pain but close to it, close enough to make it feel dangerous and therefore tempting. Everything in this moment was something Sloane wanted. She wanted to hoard every sensation and detail for herself so that she could revisit them again and again, have them even in the privacy and darkness of her own room. But this was the sort of thrill that could not be replicated, the kind that, she thought, would feel new every time. She needed the real thing.

After what seemed like ages and like too short a time, Sloane broke away to recover her breath, but it hadn't been enough for the Ram. Nothing had ever been enough for her. While Sloane panted slightly, the Ram nuzzled the crook of her neck and planted feather-soft kisses along it, trailing upwards towards her jaw. When she kissed the side of her mouth, she paused, then ran a finger along the upward curve of the lips and giggled. "Are you smiling?" the Ram asked, almost playful.

Sloane gave a soft laugh as well, which only made her grin grow broader. "Are you?"

"Yes. I am."

_Good. You always should_ , Sloane thought before she could stop herself, and that was how she knew, for sure, that she was slipping into something that would be difficult if not impossible to get out of. If her guess was right, she would have no reason to want to.

They connected again, and Sloane wanted nothing but to take all of her in, to know her, to know her.

The scream of breaking glass sounded behind Sloane's head. They both gasped in shock as she whipped around. She had to blink hard to clear her vision, and when she did the flames shooting up from the middle of the floor seared her eyes that had adjusted to the dark.

She leapt to the small smashed window, grabbing the hand-crossbow that she kept near the wall and pointing it through the opening in one motion. Behind her, she heard the rumbling of a small sound wave, and the crackle of the still-burning magic missile diminished. The Ram handled the thing the same way she deflected ranged attacks on the track, using the magical energy from her body to push it away, which left Sloane free to scan for Hammerhead fucks. But all she heard was the faint patter of footsteps disappearing down one of the many alleyways. That was fine. She could get back at them later. She knew how the door to their garage could be jiggered open and figured she could use a couple of spare radiators that they wouldn't miss.

She turned back, mouth open as she prepared to ask her partner if she was alright, since she always asked after a close call like that. Except every other time she had asked that question, her face had been concealed. It was only when she looked back and saw the face of the Ram for the first time that she remembered they were both unmasked.

The Ram was still stamping out the last of the little fires that had been ignited on the floor--the fire extinguisher on the wall was reserved for the real disasters. She looked up from the black scorch marks a second after Sloane saw her and froze, lips parted. For the glorious half-second or so before recognition set in, she was gorgeous. Sunset-red curls, which had before been hidden by the helmet-like mask that covered her whole head, were fluffed up and shone in the late light. A trail of freckles ran across the bridge of her nose and her round, still-flushed cheeks. Her eyes were large and brown and softly blinked at Sloane, as though in wondering.

All of which would have been lovely, had those same features not belonged to Lieutenant fucking Hurley.

"Son of a bitch," she hissed as she sprang away, as though the halfling were about to detonate. Instinctively, she threw her hand up over her face to cover it, but she knew it was too late. They both knew.

"Wait, wait, please just listen for a second."

Her heart was so far up her throat she feared she would vomit it up. The cop was blocking the door, and the window was too small for her to crawl through quickly, even if she toughed out the broken glass. She could only back up against the wall and wait until she was given an opening to slip past. The lieutenant was quick--she knew that implicitly, she realized with another wave of nausea, because the Ram was quick--but she was faster.

Hurley's hands were raised in front of her, palms out in a gesture of appeasement, as if she had a hope of that at this moment. "Raven, I'm sorry, just don't--"

"Oh, yeah, take off my fucking mask for you, right? You lying motherfucker!" How long had she been sitting there just now with her eyes open while Sloane stupidly refused to look? How much information had she gathered while letting Sloane believe that she was the one learning the Ram?

"No, no, this wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't mean..." She stopped and shook her head quickly. Sloane could almost hear her swallow as she glanced away. There was a touch of desperation in her voice, and Sloane hated hearing it, and she hated herself for hating it. "I'm sorry, you're...I shouldn't be asking you to stick around. You're free to go, okay? I understand if you...if you don't want to see me anymore."

Sloane stared at her. "Wh...hell no, I'm not leaving, now that you've said that. How many cops are waiting for me out there, huh?"

"This isn't like that!"

"Or the second I have my back turned you're just going to call up half your department to come--"

Immediately, Hurley took her stone of far-speech out of her pocket, held it up for Sloane to see, and then chucked it overhand like a baseball out of the garage.

Sloane followed its path with her eyes, then snapped her gaze back to look at Hurley, whose arms now hung at her sides. "It's just the two of us," she said quietly. "I promise."

The Ram had never once broken a promise.

Sloane took in a breath that shook her chest. "Why the fuck wouldn't you try to bring me in?"

She smiled a little in return. Sloane used to imagine what her smile would look like. She had imagined it to be dimpled. She was right. "Don't you think that if I were going to arrest you, I would've had plenty of chances before now?"

That, her slightly less panic-addled brain had to admit, was a fair point. "Maybe you were waiting for the right time," she mumbled. "Or for more evidence." But even she knew she sounded doubtful.

Hurley laughed. "Raven, if I..." She paused. "I...I guess that's not really your name, is it?" In response to the glare that Sloane fired at her, she smirked. "Do you really think it's going to make much of a difference now if I know your name?"

She turned away from Hurley and let out her breath in a huff. Regrettably, she was right again. "It's Sloane," she said after a silence.

"Hurley."

"I'm aware," she grumbled.

The lieutenant extended her hand. Sloane just cocked her eyebrow and looked at it, then at her face, then back at the hand. Hurley gave a little shrug with one shoulder. "Since it's the first time we're meeting formally."

"Why are you here? If not to catch me, why?"

Her arm slowly began to droop down, along with her smile. "Same as you," she murmured. "To race."

Sloane scoffed. "That's it? You, star lieutenant, decided to go against every ounce of training you ever got and work with the Raven just for kicks?"

"Would you believe it?"

She thought back to the familiar sound of the Ram's wild, screaming laughter that could be heard even over the consuming drone of engines. How she had worked for thirty-six hours straight once to get the wagon in shape for the Calaveras Sprint. How she appeared more often than not with dust in every crevice, having taken the machine far out into the desert for yet another "test run." All the charming things. "I believe it," Sloane answered quietly. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her back on Hurley, staring at the wall of wrenches and welding torches. "That's really the only reason?"

"It was." The two words were barely audible, but they made Sloane's ears prick up before she could stop them. She glanced over her shoulder to find Hurley back on the bench, eyes turned downward, rubbing the back of her neck. "For the record, I've never tried that hard to arrest you. Even on the clock. That'd be bad for both of us."

"Not all bad for you, right? Bet you'd get a nice raise or some shit if you caught me."

"And I'd never be able to come back here again." She sighed. "I'm sorry for making this difficult, Sloane. And...for everything else, I guess. You probably have no reason to believe me, but none of this is going to leave this garage."

It was strange to hear her name coming from the Ram's mouth. She couldn't tell whether she liked it or not. "So that was all real, huh? Just now, I mean."

Sloane heard her inhale deeply, as though to brace herself. "Yes."

With a long sigh, she brought her hand up to run through her long hair, but resisted the urge to tug on it. Even so, she could still very nearly feel the phantom tingling near her roots where the Ram had pulled her closer. She would not have been able to recreate the feeling herself anyway. It wouldn't be the same. "Well, that's fucking inconvenient."

It was growing dim. Outside, the sky was red-orange where it was not dark. "Can I tell you something?" Sloane didn't answer during the pause, but Hurley still went on, "I didn't want to see your face today anyway. I was always scared you'd see me without the mask, but after awhile I thought it'd be even worse to see you without yours."

"Why?"

"'Cause I thought you might be beautiful." Sloane barely managed to suppress her gasp, but there was no way to hold back the heat she felt creeping up her neck. "And if you were, I thought I'd see you and that'd be it, and I'd finally be in too deep. I was right." She spun around to find Hurley still staring at the ground, this time smiling with something like regret. She saw the last light of day hit her face in profile and curve off her smooth cheeks and in too deep, in too deep reverberated inside the chamber of her skull, dulling all other thoughts.

So Lieutenant Hurley really was the Ram. It hadn't fully sunk in for her until that moment. She didn't know many others besides the Ram who would be so goddamn blunt.

"You..." Her face was overheated, she felt her mind short, and the only thing she could think to do was stamp her foot like a petulant child and shout, "Dammit! You can't just _say_ that shit to me!"

"Sorry," Hurley chuckled. "I was just being honest."

She huffed and dropped her forehead into her hand. It sat there heavily for a moment before she slowly looked up again. She made the mistake of making eye-contact. Hurley's wide gaze seemed to plea with her.

For another long while, she hesitated, until finally she went to sit on the bench next to the Ram the way that she always had. Out of the corner of her vision, she noticed Hurley stare with her eyebrows arched in surprise, but she did not turn to face her even as she spoke.

"I hate your kind," she started. "Not just for personal reasons, either. I'd still think the militia was scum even if I weren't on your most wanted list."

To her surprise, Hurley mumbled, "Understandable."

Sloane sighed. "You're also the best racer I've ever met, and an even better partner. You've saved my literal, whole-ass life on multiple occasions, and I guess I've done the same for you. And..." And the Ram always seemed to glow like a small sun. And in spite of all the secrecy Sloane had still never felt more comfortable with any other person. And sometimes she got up in the morning purely because of the knowledge that she would see the Ram later. And she felt lighter just walking in to find her in the garage. And even now a part of her wanted to slip into the arms of, yes, Lieutenant Hurley. "And there's other things, too," she finished weakly.

"Are you saying you still want to be partners?"

"Well. Damned if I do and damned if I don't, I guess."

Hurley glanced at her again. There was a nervousness in her eyes, but something else, too, that made them sparkle even under her furrowed brow. The wood beneath them groaned again as she slid over. She did not so much lean on Sloane as simply touch shoulders with her. Warmth seeped from her body into Sloane's. If she let it go on long enough, the tautness in her flight-response-ready muscles would gradually melt away, and she would be off her guard.

Sloane looked down at the woman at her side, bared to her, entirely, for the first time. The adrenaline and fear in her blood had congealed into thick exhaustion, weighing down her limbs. Her thoughts spun her around, and she didn't feel like thinking them anymore. All she saw was the head of curls beneath her.

Gradually, she bent over slightly, just enough to rest her chin on top of the fluffy locks. She didn't need to look down to know the way Hurley exhaled and curled against her chest. No other feeling came close.

" _Shit_ ," she whispered and then kissed Hurley again. It was dark all around now, and she let herself sink.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I wrote the first 1300 words of this as a response to a fic meme on Tumblr and then finished the rest over like two days please enjoy the most self-indulgent shit I've written in awhile.
> 
> Please comment if you liked it!!! Thanks so much for reading!


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